We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tara Ann Tomaini a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tara Ann, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My mom and Mema (grandmother) both passed away 18 days apart in 2023. My mom cherished my creativity and kept all of my artwork displayed in her home. She also loved to celebrate life’s little joys. She would throw the most themed out parties and every little detail would make sense down to the napkins. She also loved the musical, The Sound of Music, I become custom to Julie Andrews singing about her favorite things.

My Mema wore plenty of jewelry in her day. She especially loved gold and diamonds. She would have appreciated the quality Heirloom Party upholds.

I started seeing the old school Italian charm bracelets, the resin rosary bracelets and charm bars become popular again. So I found beautiful matching lockets added a photo of our mom when she was younger. Surrounding her necklace I asked my sister what things reminded her of our mom. She sent photos with some of our her favorite things. Through tons of trial and error my mom’s favorite things become charms to add to the locket for my sister. I wanted to give her a piece of mom through the little things she left behind.

Heirloom Party was born shortly after, with the idea that we have all sat at this table of grief before or we will sooner or later.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Well my name is Tara Ann Tomaini and I was born here in San Diego at the Naval Hospital. My mom was Saray and my dad was Gary, they met in the navy off of Rosecrans. I spent most of my childhood summers in Oceanport/Long Branch New Jersey with my very Italian grandparents Gary and Sherri short for Charmaine and my school days here with my mom in Point Loma/Ocean Beach.

I am now 36 married with two little girls of my own. I am definitely a Pinterest connoisseur, diy girlie and I will most definitely figure this out kind of person. I take to my Italian heritage and I have pride in creating a brand that embodies where my roots are from.

A few of my customers have become personal friends and have expressed how therapeutic the process was for them. I no longer felt as alone as I did before curating Heirloom Party. I want Heirloom Party to be that safe space for others as well. Feeling alone is sometimes a terrible feeling. Somehow these little charms create intent and help patch up some of the darkness surrounding grief.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I was trying to figure out how to reach out to a larger audience. So I began to make senseless charms to appeal to the growing charm bar market. Little charms of bunnies, bows, strawberries and other meaningless photos turned charm. As I walked around a market I was selling at I noticed six other charm bars each with different bunnies, bows and strawberries. I quickly deleted my website listings and went back to only custom orders. I didn’t want to lose the customer connection through personal orders.

Have you ever had to pivot?

In life I’d say my biggest pivot is when I became a mother to my second girl. I became a stay at home mom and I homeschool both my girls. At first I loved it completely and thought nothing about being judged by others. As time went on I started to notice the judgment from other moms most of it was from jealousy so I brushed it off. But when I went to buy my car and was told being a homemaker even though I had income was not enough it blew my mind. I thought everything I was doing wasn’t near good enough. Since then I have always had a small business attached to my name. I believe it is important to feel like you can give more than you take in this world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://heirloomparty.bigcartel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heirloomparty/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D

Image Credits

my sister Taylah Sitz